Guilherme Maia Silva ’19 calls himself a modern-day milkman.
He’s the brains behind MILK-ish, a new plant-based milk alternative made from watermelon seeds. Think almond milk, but with the seeds from watermelons. From the idea and conceptualization to selling and social media, Silva is determined to educate potential customers.
“Our dream is to eventually be a milk alternative that’s sold nationwide in the same way that a lot of almond and oat milks are,” Silva said. “Right now, we're in a very high discovery phase.”
MILK-ish debuted in 2024. Silva acknowledged that the first step with a product like MILK-ish is highlighting the uniqueness while offering taste tests to the masses.
“Watermelon milk is a little bit more of a neutral flavor [than other nut-based milks] with a hint of natural sweetness,” Silva said. “We don’t use any sugar or sweeteners, so it’s slightly nutty and what we like to call magically sweet without the sugar. It's pretty tasty.”
In the beginning
Silva, a plant science major at UC Davis, came up with the idea for MILK-ish by combining a burgeoning love for the food and beverage industry with the desire to investigate ingredients that are grown with less environmentally intensive resources than what is already on the market.
After graduating from UC Davis, Silva worked briefly in quality assurance for a cookie manufacturing company. It sparked an interest in entrepreneurship.
“Quite frankly being an entrepreneur was never really my main goal,” he said. “It just kind of happened, and I got to the point where I was like, well, this is really cool. If I was going to take the entrepreneurial route, I was going to at least do something that was not ever done before.”
Silva secured funding from Bay Area investors for early development and spent about a year and a half working on the product and focusing on building the brand. The end product, he said, has a lower water impact than other plant-based milks. He added that it takes 99% less water to grow watermelons than almonds.
MILK-ish just hit 100 retail locations in California. The closest location to Davis is the Sacramento Natural Foods Co-op.
The road to UC Davis
Originally from Brazil, Silva grew up watching his father work in seed supply. The job took the family around the world — living in Thailand, China, India — before eventually landing in the United States when Silva was 15.
Observing his dad piqued his interest in studying agriculture with a goal of becoming an agronomist.
“When it was time to start looking for colleges, I asked my dad, ‘Where did your co-workers go to college? What are good schools for me to go to if I want to study crop production or plant science?’ And he mentioned UC Davis.”
Silva came to UC Davis without visiting first.
“I looked at a few pictures of the campus,” he said. “When I got in, I decided, ‘yep, that’s where I’m going,’ and I didn’t look back once.”
His career plans changed after graduation, as he gained more experience in the food and beverage industry.
Now he’s focused on building MILK-ish. He acknowledged the whirlwind of the past couple of years. The goal is to partner with cafes to carry the product and get shelf space in stores.
“The biggest challenge is how to get out there and compete with the hundreds of other brands trying to get people’s attention,” Silva said. “If I have to go door-to-door to get people to try the product I totally would.”